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WE&T Magazine

Water Environment & Technology (WE&T) is the premier magazine for the water quality field. WE&T provides information on what professionals demand: cutting-edge technologies, innovative solutions, operations and maintenance, regulatory and legislative impacts, and professional development.

July
2012, Vol.
24, No.7

Florida is full of alligators, but you still don’t expect to find one lounging in a clarifier. That’s exactly what the staff at the 28,400-m3/d (7.5-mgd) Main Street Water Reclamation Facility in Gainesville, Fla., found.
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Featured Articles

Clarifying wet weather enhancements

The Mill Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant is the largest of seven major wastewater treatment plants owned and operated by the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati (MSD) to collect and treat combined sewer flows. Mill Creek treats an annual average flow of 530,000 m3/d (140 mgd).

As part of a systemwide effort to reduce combined sewer overflows, MSD is upgrading Mill Creek’s secondary treatment processes to provide reliable treatment of up to 908,000 m3/d (240 mgd) of sustained wet weather flows. With the upgrades one-third complete, MSD and the upgrade’s designers paused to measure how well the new designs were operating. They used a combination of field testing and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling to assess the new operation and find some additional measures to fine-tune the project.

When green really isn’t the greenest

The Eugene–Springfield (Ore.) Regional Water Pollution Control Facility is a state-of-the-art facility that serves the greater Eugene–Springfield area. The wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and associated collection system clean an average of 114,000 m3/d (30 mgd). The Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission (MWMC), which operates, maintains, and administers the plant, has a good-neighbor policy that extends to strategic efforts that affect the WWTP’s direct neighbors, such as homes, schools, businesses, and parks, and the community as a whole. Controlling odors associated with wastewater treatment processes is acknowledged as an important component of that policy.

News

Big biogas-to-energy projects in the works

Two upcoming large-scale energy recovery projects demonstrate the multifaceted value of utilizing biogas from wastewater anaerobic digester processes to generate electricity and thermal energy. Indeed, in addition to sustainable energy production, biogas-to-energy projects offer significant potential for relieving burdens associated with excess biogas, as well as reducing biosolids volume and generating a higher-quality biosolids product. From an environmental perspective, biogas projects are viewed as beneficial in terms of the carbon-footprint reduction potential.

With these expected benefits, the biogas-to-energy market is poised for future growth. According to a BCC Research (Wellesley, Mass.) market report, renewable, sustainable energy generation will be the fastest-growing energy sector during the next two decades, with the North American market for biogas production equipment forecasted to reach nearly $1.2 billion by 2016, up from $510 million in 2011, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 17.7%.

Coming in the next issue:

August 2012

When it comes to water, not enough is a crisis but too much is a disaster. The August issue will dive into the steps needed to predict, measure, transport, treat, and reuse what nature throws at you.

The public has a hard time believing the “experts” when they report the third 10-year recurrence interval storm in 7 years. But it turns out that the statisticians who develop precipitation frequency estimates really do know what they are talking about. Find out what three factors create the perception that big storms happen so often.

As the storm clouds loom, estimating how much is headed for the collection system becomes a challenge. Learn how state-of-the-art monitoring and modeling systems can provide the information needed to mitigate street flooding, optimize wastewater treatment plant operations, and reduce combined sewer overflows. Then read about the strategy and technology an Indiana utility employed to use its existing pipes better.

With the deluge contained, the job switches from handling quantity to ensuring quality. Read about an intense, 2-year demonstration program to test full-scale performance of tertiary membrane filtration systems to meet strict total phosphorus limits.

To add one more wrinkle, now imagine you don’t have the option for a liquid discharge. In Fountain Hills, Ariz., a utility stores microfiltered reclaimed water in a local aquifer during cool months and reuses it during hot months. During the past decade, Fountain Hills has reused more than 18.9 million m3 (5 billion gal) of water.